Teacher raise negotiations to continue for at least another month

The Classroom Teachers Association union continued looking under every stone of the Palm Beach County School District’s budget on Tuesday afternoon, searching for additional money for teacher raises in addition to the funds the state legislature has already kicked in.

And school district officials continued telling the union, which represents the school district’s roughly 12,000 public school teachers, that no more blood could be squeezed from those stones.

“The outlook has not gotten any rosier,” said Chief Operating Officer Mike Burke. “The money we have on the table fully exhausts the money the district has available.”

The school district offered all teachers $2,000 raises last month, saying that paying for about $1,948 of those raises would use all of the roughly $30 million in state funding earmarked for raises. The district would use other general fund money to pay for the other $48.

Teachers union Executive Director Lynn Cavall said the teachers union did not have a counter proposal on teacher salaries yet because they are still gathering information on the district’s budget. She said the union is looking for additional money in the district’s budget to add to the raises offered.

Union officials spent most of the negotiating session on Tuesday asking questions about the district’s budget such as how much money the district hiring less experienced and therefore lower paid teachers to replace teachers who retired or resigned last year.

Budget Director Shirley Knox estimated the district saved about $1.5 million, but said those savings were already factored into this year’s budget when the district lowered the average salary budgeted for teachers from about $41,500 to about $39,700.

Union officials also asked several questions about the size of the district’s contingency reserves. Knox said the district had about $44 million in reserves that was not earmarked to pay for some expected service or program. She said that $44 million in savings makes a reserve fund of about 3 percent of the overall $1.5 billion in general fund appropriations. Knox said the school board’s policy requires a reserve fund of at least 3 percent of appropriations.

“There’s not a lot of wiggle room left. We did everything last year,” Burke said of the district’s budget.

Cavall said in addition to proposing more money for teacher raises, the union may may also propose a different distribution of the money rather than giving all teachers the same amount. She said the union is trying to create an offer that gives newer teachers an increase but is also fair to more experienced teachers who went years without raises during the five years the school district froze the annual “step” raises in the teachers’ union contract.

The union expects to make a counter proposal regarding teacher salaries at its next bargaining session on Oct. 3. After that negotiations are scheduled to continue over teacher raises and other contract language on Oct. 8 and Oct. 9.

The union did make a proposal to the district on Tuesday asking the district to increase the amount paid to teachers in additional supplements for doing things like coaching sports. The union is asking for a four percent increase to most supplements.